Well, this explains a lot!

I've always loved the look of pearls, and an article in the recent Southern Living just clued me in to what MUST be the reason.

I can't find a link to the direct article in SL, but this article explains it pretty well too.

The basic gist of the article, for me:
Although only one-tenth of one percent of the world's cultured pearls come from their waters, approximately 90% of all cultured pearls begin with a mother-of-pearl nucleus taken from the shell of a Tennessee mussel.


There's a little Southern charm in most all of those pearls, girls! A little bit of Dixie inside each lovely jewel. That's why we ALL need a few strands. ::vbg::

For Jmk.....

...to remember in those later years when Poodle dares to bring a boy to meet her Daddy.....

I just lit a candle, and was letting her blow out the match. She pretended it was a birthday candle and here was her wish:

"I wish, I wish - to love my fahther fo-ever and ever!"

Honey, you'll always be her first love. :-)

Overhead in the Park.....

Woman #1 (with more fashion than sense): What in the world are those women doing wearing flip-flops? Don't they know it's October?

Woman #2 (with more patience than me): But it's October in (insert our state of residence here). It's too hot for anything else!

Kudos my dear!!! Comfort and common sense a part of our fashion decisions - that's what I like to see! I know that I'm still a slave to the no-white-shoes-after-Labor-Day rule, and all that..... but I say if it's 78 degrees in December (which isn't uncommon in the Deep South), then wear those flip flops. Hose? Bah - who needs 'em? (And I don't care how white your legs are. Un-hose those white legs!) They're helpful in the little bit of cold weather we get. Other than that, they are good for nothing but upping your core body temperature.

You get my point. I think we should have an award for people who spread common sense and logic in the face of questionable opinions that really don't make sense. The Zoo's FlipFlop award?

FlipFlops to you, Woman Number Two!!!

Website Update

Okay. I feel the need to explain something. I haven't updated the website in forever, because:
#1 - it takes time that I don't usually have. I depend on the blog, mostly.
#2 - our desktop crashed awhile back, taking with it 2 months of pictures that I didn't have stored elsewhere. My brother is working with it to see what can be salvaged, so we'll see what can be done.
#3 - Sony's Imagestation website is closing, and it has taken me awhile to decide where to start posting pictures.

I wanted a place that could do a few things: give me lots of storage for free, not make people sign into the site in order to see the pictures, allow me to password the site so I could post a direct link from the blog, and be easy for me to create the only album.

Couldn't find that animal.

Finally decided to just go with Google's Picasa for now, and will see what else is out there. But, I can't password protect the album. And, because I tend to include personal info on the pictures (like names!), I don't want to post a direct link to the pictures.
Crazy people use the internet, unfortunately.

So, I have gotten August's pictures up to view, and will wait and see what kind of problems may unfold before I put up any more. The website address is described at the top of the blog - but if you want to see the pictures, and aren't sure about the website address, just leave me a comment, and I'll email the link to you!

Practice

The Zookeepers have picked up a new camera which is quite a bit smaller than our old one (and, no - there's no velcro holding this one together), so I'm having to get used to the new one. And what better way than to snap the kids!

I loved this one of Poodle, because she has her baby face in it. ::sniff sniff:: sigh......





And - Mr. Tooter. He pretty much has his stinker face!!!
:-)

Thank Goodness for Audrey

Preface note - Audrey is Poodle and Tooter's dear baby cousin, who is a mere almost-7-months old.

So, we're walking yesterday afternoon, and we pass by another family walking with their two kids - one I would guess about 2 years old, and the other one was just a wee lass (or maybe lad). Poodle promptly told us that SHE wanted a baby. Jmk and I raise eyebrows at each other and tell her that she has Tooter. Just to see what happened. (And, I was thinking about what I had read on a friend's blog about what her 4 year old had said about his baby sister. Which was very sweet. I wasn't expecting quite the same response from Poodle). So, anyway, we mention Tooter, and she turns around and looks at him... just studies him intently. Then turns back around to face forward and says "No, I don't think so. I want a girl baby".

More raised eyebrows between me and Jmk.

I tell her that Mommy doesn't have any babies in her tummy, and that we can't promise her a girl baby anyway.

Well, this isn't going to do, of course. So, she says "oh, what am I going to do about a girl baby? Oh! That's right!!! I have baby Audrey!!!"

lol.... I guess we can keep those infant clothes up in the attic a little while longer. ;-)

Playing with the camera

This was in front of Poodle's swimming class yesterday - they are all decked out for Halloween! This is one of those blow-up dealies, with the extra added fun of a speaker that lets out one of those yowling cat cries. Right after Poodle's little I-Just-Won-The-Title-Of-Miss -America pose (which she managed all on her own), the cat started yowling, and she turned around a few times and ran back to me. It was pretty funny.





This is Poodle and Brooke - one of her swim class buddies. They were waiting on the other boys in the class to get there, and were having a very intense discussion about a toy that Brooke has. It's a Barbie fishing pole. Mmm-hmmmm. Sounds like Santa Claus is going to be taking a trip to Bass Pro Shop before coming to the house this year!

This is why we have a dog.

This dog is finally coming in handy.
;-)

Late yesterday afternoon, as Jmk was on his way home from work, I was trying to get supper started while the kids were wanting to play outside. This quickly turned into wanting to throw the ball to Custard, so I just left the back door open, watched them through the windows, and kept on chopping potatoes and veggies. (After taking a moment to grab a picture or four out the back door).

He kept them happily amused for a good 15 minutes! It was fabulous!!!



This was a shot of Cus in mid catch. Poodle was cracking up in the chair, and Toot was in the process of getting the other ball to keep the dog hoppin'. It was fantastic. I was seeing future visions of being able to tell the kids "go outside and play" while I stayed inside to turn on "mommy music" and listen to peace and quiet! Woohooo!

Now, wait a minute.

So, we're walking after supper tonight, and we get in a conversation with Poodle about why the sun goes down earlier this time of year. That leads into asking her about the seasons, and Jmk starts helping her with the order of said seasons.

In case you weren't aware of the proper order of the seasons of the year, they are as follows:

Spring.
Summer.
Fall.
Deer.

And, there you go.

Yahhhh!!!!!

It's Friday!!!!!!!!!

Daddy's Birthday

Daddies always need lots of hugs and kisses on their birthday. It's an absolute necessity. This came shortly after we sang the Happy Birthday song to, as Poodle puts it, "my fahtha"

And even MORE smooches and hugs from Tooter Pooter!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JMK!!!

I am so glad that they built the DeSoto County Civic Center.

::smile::

I love you so much, and I hope you have a wonderful day today! We'll see you soon!!!

Pachelbel Bedtime

For Mommies and Daddies everywhere... hat tip to Rebecca Thomas for this fabulous youtube moment!

Another use for Coke

Unfortunately, it's another one of those things that makes you wonder why we put that stuff in our bodies. Why does it have to taste soooooo good?

Anyway, this household tip is along the lines of coke-helps-you-keep-your-car-battery-terminals-clean,. You've been warned.

It also helps take chlorine out of your hair!

We get back from Poodle's swim lessons right at lunch time - and it's always a rush for me to get them fed fast enough and to nap fast enough without losing Tooter in the process. Sometimes I'm able to get her hair rinsed out properly, and sometimes, well...... you know what chlorine does to blond hair.

So, I read this tip online - pouring a can of coke over hair will help to strip the chlorine out of it!
::gulp::
And it does. Yay for that!!! I used both a can of diet coke which took about half of it out, and then used a can of "real" coke that night to get the rest of it. Both worked about as well as the other. I think there's maybe still a little bit of the greenies left - but I don't know that you'd notice it unless you had the perfect lighting and were trying to find shades of green.

But, for me, it's just one more thing to think about when I pop the top on my occasional treat of coke. This stuff is capable of cleaning my car battery terminals and stripping chlorine out of blond hair.
Ugh.
Maybe this will make it even easier to save the 110 calories.

I'll just substitute with chocolate. Ha!!!

The first sign that....

a person needs to relax.....

I just caught myself trying to remove a stain from one of Tooter's t-shirts. The slogan on the t-shirt says "Dirt is my favorite color".

Mmmhmmmm. Me thinks I need to chill out a wee bit!

Journey of the cake and "ganache" recipe

So, a couple of months ago, I asked Poodle what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday. At that time, she told me she wanted a "tower cake with Snow White Princess on top". Mmmhmmm. Jmk was figuring out how to configure this architectural marvel.

Then, the tower cake became a pink cake with pink icing. And Snow White Princess on top.

She then decided she wanted a pink cake with purple icing. (And maybe some pink flowers).

Then she wanted an ice cream cake.

Then, it was back to pink cake and purple icing, BUT, with ice cream on top.

Then, all of a sudden, she wanted chocolate cake with chocolate icing with blue flowers. And she didn't change her mind except for saying a couple of times that she didn't want any blue flowers. But then decided that some blue roses were "very pretty".

Well. As you may know, I enjoy making her cakes. I'm not all that great at it - never taken a class or anything. But I enjoy doing it. However, due to my unschooled skills, figuring out what I'm going to do takes some thinking. And with Miss Priss changing her mind so many times, the culinary section of my brain was in a tizzy!

But when she made the momentous decision to go all chocolate, I knew that I wanted the icing to be a smooth and shiny concoction.

Hmmmm.... ganache! Hours of watching FoodTV paid off!

Ganache is a simple mixture of heavy cream and chopped chocolate. BUT, I don't usually have heavy cream at the house. HowEVER, I do have COOL WHIP! Plus, the extra corn syrup junk in the cool whip helps to keep the "ganache" shiny. Another plus, ganache is a pourable type of icing that is really very yummy.

So, the only right thing to do in this situation, of course, is to share the chocolate joy!

It's a hard recipe, just so you know. ::cough cough::

Ingredients:
Equal parts cool whip and chocolate chips. (A bag of chocolate chips is around 2 cups - just fyi).

Put the cool whip into a microwable container and bring just to a boil.
Pour chocolate chips into hot, liquid cool whip.
Stir really well until everything is combined, dark, and shiny.

Pour over cake.

Told you it was hard. :-)

The more cool whip you add, the thinner the "ganache" becomes. Somewhere around 4 parts cool whip to 2 parts chocolate chips makes for a fantastic sauce for ice cream!

AND, the extra keep nicely in the refrigerator. Just scoop out what you want to use, heat it up in the microwave to loosen it up, and you're done.

Go have some chocolate fun today!!!

Bowling Babies

The day before Poodle's birthday, the CHEC group (the homeschool group) went bowling! This was her first time to bowl, and she had a blast. They also celebrated the kids who had birthdays in either Aug & Sept or Sept & Oct, so that was extra special for Poodle, too!

I was a bit crazy trying to keep up with Tooter, since he didn't exactly bowl, but we all had fun! Until the very end when Poodle's lack of a nap kicked in - but, she was too excited about the idea of doing something new and knowing she had a party coming up the next day, and she just couldn't sleep. Whadayagonnado?

This is a great group of kids - fun time for all!

The problem with......

...the environmental crowd. At least for me. You know, I can't argue for or against "environmental causes", to use a blanket term. Global warming seems about as vague of a premise. Seems like for each study showing that it's real, there's another one showing it's not.

And, honestly, I just don't have the time I think necessary to really study all the issues.

I do know that we should all, as responsible people, take care of what we are borrowing and we should try to waste as little as possible. Treat the land and water well so that we can all be healthier.

But the problem with the environmental crowd got summed up for me in a recent Guideposts article. It is in the September 2007 issue, and one of the senior editors interviewed a Mr. Bill McKibben who was apparently one of the first "leaders" of the global warming movement. In this article that seemed to put this man on a pedestal, there was as usual a lot of talk about the "problem" and a lot of vague ideas about how to fix the problem.

But, anyway, here is my problem with that crowd. Although this particular man was being written about because he does express a faith in God and is a member of his church, he made a couple of comments that belied a true faith in the POWER of God. In speaking of the Adirondacks, which seemed to be "under attack" by the forces of car exhaust and smokestack emissions, Mr. McKibben was quoted as saying this:

"A place I love was under threat," he said. And more than a place. Sophie [his daughter], he realized, and children such as those he taught on Sundays, were being forced to grow up in a world where nature was being wrested from God's control [emphasis mine] and set on a potentially dangerous course.

Now, Wait. Really? You really think that man - insignificant man - has the power to wrest ANYthing from God's control? I'm not saying that we aren't capable of screwing things up. We are! Oh, but we are. Just look at these developments that go up seemingly overnight, because the first thing that happens is that the land is completely clear cut, taking away all the TREES that clean the air for us.

We can screw things up. But do you really think there is some momentous struggle between man and God where man finally wins the tug-o-war, and sends God stumbling into the mud pile?

Perish the thought. I feel icky just for writing that.

God may just leave us to our own devices, but we don't wrest ANYTHING from His control.

Then, later in the article when Mr. McKibben is speaking of the necessity for society in general to quit being SO accumulation driven, and be more family and community driven, he makes this comment:
But here was Bill McKibben, standing in a garden, explaining that the values of faith communities - neighborliness, time with family, serving others instead of buying more stuff - are how to heal the planet. "What does Jesus keep harping on?" he said. "Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. You can't get a clearer statement in favor of community. No one dies and says, 'I wish I had gone to the mall more often' ".

Okay. Now.... okay. Most all of that - gets a big head nod from me. But - you really think Jesus was "harping" on that subject? That's the best way you could devise to express yourself, huh? Saying that Jesus Christ was harping on the subject. Sort of like the way I might nag my poor husband about how the towels are folded? (I don't actually nag him about that - I'm sure I unknowingly nag him about something, but it's not towels.)

Anyway, you see what I mean? There is an inherent view of God as weak, or not really in control, or even worse - incapable - in so much of the active environmental community. And that's just those who actually express a belief in and a faith in God. I'm not even dealing with those who have no belief in a Creator.

I think that we could do some serious "fixing" of a lot of our habits in order to keep our land and our waters healthy. That is something with which I agree. But words matter, and even more - point of view matters. If one doesn't really consider God as holy, all-powerful, and in control, then one isn't in a humble enough frame of mind. That humbleness would do a lot more to convince people that they need to take care of Someone Else's property then trying to give the impression that we have all the control.

Happy Birthday to our Poodle

My darling girl, I hope you enjoyed your party today, but mostly, I hope that you have some inkling about how much your Daddy and I love you. You, and your brother, are our world, and the reason we do most everything. I can not believe you are 4, but I'm so grateful that the Lord has given us YOU.

WE love you honey!!!